Thursday, January 21, 2010

Gabriel Byrne admits to being molested by priest.

Gabriel Byrne, star of one of my favorite movies, Gothic, in addition to playing Uther Pendragon in Excalibur, has gone public with the news that he was abused by a priest. He moved to England at the age of 11, according to this article, to 'train as a priest' in the Catholic church.

This is not the first time he spoke of this issue. A wikipedia article (see below) mentions 'reports' that he admitted to being abused by priests during his childhood.

Byrne's interview with Irish broadcaster, Gay Byrne, seems to mark the first time he's spoken in public about this issue.

Excerpt:

'It was a fact of life amongst us that there was this particular man, and you didn't want to be left in the dressing room with him.'

Byrne was abused by a member of the clergy when he moved to England at the age of 11 to train as a priest.
He revealed to Irish broadcaster Gay Byrne: 'It didn't go on over a prolonged period but it happened at a very, very vulnerable moment.'

Byrne, a father of two, admitted the abuse he endured had left him 'deeply hurt' and had taken him many years to come to terms with.

"There were certain boundaries, sexual boundaries, that were crossed… I didn't feel that I suffered at the time.. It took many years to come to terms with it and to forgive those incidents that I felt had deeply hurt me. Again, I didn't think it severely impacted me at the time. But I suppose when I think about my later life, and how I had difficulties with certain issues, there is the real possibility they could have been attributable to that."

Ironically, his current role is as a therapist. Byrne plays Dr. Paul Weston in the HBO series, In Treatment.